When wine barrels are continuously used, the inner surfaces become contaminated with wine residue, and the much sought after "wood flavour" becomes less and less available. Accordingly, sometimes it is necessary to discard wine barrels when there is still a considerable thickness of wood left, and the main object of this invention is to provide a means and a method of removing a small thickness of the wood together with the wine residue from the interior surface of the barrel.
In a large winery there are very large numbers of barrels, and the removal of wood from the interior of the barrel could be a time-consuming and tedious operation, and the secondary object of the invention is to provide a machine which is capable of removing the wood from the barrel in an automatic process, giving accurate control over depth and speed of cutting. If accurate controls are used over the depth of cutting it is possible to provide an increased life of the barrel by removing only the required amount of wood, whereas manual removal of the wood can tend to be a little haphazard, and cause excessively deep cuts in some areas.